What Have You Done For Me Lately?

I think we can all agree that Congress is woefully broken.  Especially the 112th Congress with its Tea Party heavy faction.  This is the true definition of the "Do Nothing Congress." As of November 27, 2012, the 112th Congress has passed a total of 200 pieces of legislation.  That's a lot less than the original "Do Nothing Congress" as named by Harry Truman.  That was the 80th Congress who passed over 900 pieces of legislation.  

The fun part--and by fun, I mean pathetic and sad, is the breakdown of those paltry 200 pieces of legislation by the 112th.  Of the 200 bills passed into law that the House and Senate both agreed on included the following:

• 30 bills renamed Post Offices
• 11 bills renamed Federal Courthouses, buildings and property
• 3 reappointed regents to the Smithsonian Institute
• 3 bestowed Congressional gold medals on deserving citizens
• 4 authorized commemorative coins to be created

Eighty pieces of legislation that passed were amendments or extensions of current laws.  That means that the 112th Congress passed 69 pieces of unique, meaningful legislation.  You must take the word "meaningful" with a grain of salt, as those 69 pieces of legislation include "important" issues such as the Billfish Conservancy Act (no offense to Marlin lovers), erecting a statue of Frederick Douglas in the Library of Congress, and a bill that allows Astronauts to keep their NASA souvenirs from space missions.  They also include an act to bring the America's Cup Race to the US, a bill to erect a monument on federal land honoring Fort Pulaski, and the Box Elder Utah Land Conveyance.  In fact--several pieces of legislation passed were land conveyances.  

I certainly don't mean to slight Billfish lovers, I believe in conservation programs. I think Statues and monuments to honor important historical figures and designate historical places are important.  However, we're in a lot of trouble if this is all our Congress can come together on--and it makes me very, very angry.  I'm angry that this was the best they could do for us.  I'm angry that they were unable to reach consensus on so few pieces of legislation while the country crumbles at their feet.  They seem to look at the devastation around them and still the best they can say is, "I disagree."

This is the Congress that was so absorbed by their political agenda of making President Obama a one term President that they threatened so convincingly to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, the nation's credit rating was lowered.  Good job, Congress.  The Republicans in this Congress held hostage the lives of America's unemployed (about 8% of us at the time), by refusing to extend their unemployment benefits unless the super rich got their tax cuts extended.  These people are supposed to be working for all of us--not just 2% of the population.  I'm sick of my government being hi-jacked and held hostage over benefits for the 2% who are doing just fine while the rest of us are struggling to just get by.  It isn't supposed to be like this.  

I've been doing some thinking now that sequestration cuts are looming over the nation's head.  There is talk that Congress will let the country go over the "fiscal cliff" because it saves face for Republicans who signed Grover Norquist's tax pledge.  Most economists agree that if the cuts go into effect, we will enter another recession.  If sequestration cuts happen, almost everyone in the country will be negatively affected--except for one tiny fraction--the members of Congress.  And they're going to take us there and throw us over the edge for political reasons.  It seems we have a serious problem.

The problem is that Congress is punishing the wrong people when they can't (or won't) get the job done.  The sequestration slashes domestic spending indiscriminately.  That punishes a lot of Americans who depend on federal funding for programs, services, public safety, education...the list goes on and on.  Congress is punishing us for their inability and unwillingness to do their jobs.  They put party above country and we suffer for it.  I propose that we enact some legislation of our own to fix that and punish the real culprits.  Congress deserves to feel some of the pain.  We need to create an independent office of Congressional oversight made up or ordinary citizens who have the power to impose sanctions on Congress when they fail to do the people's business in a timely fashion or refuse to act for political gain. I also propose the following measures:

1. If Congress cannot pass a budget, we enact the rule my mother used for cleaning my room:  Don't come out until it's done.  I propose that members of Congress are only allowed to leave the floor of the House and Senate to use the bathroom and they have 15 minutes for that.  No going home for the night and reconvening the next day.  Sorry--stay there until you get the people's business done.

2.  In situations where people on Social Security, our Troops, federal employees, etc. are threatened with having their paychecks or unemployment benefits cut off, I propose that Congress is included.  In fact, I propose they be at the top of that list.  If citizens are threatened with losing their incomes, then Congress should face that devastating threat first.  We don't get money--neither do they.  

3.  I propose that Congress participate in a training program that educates them on what it's like to live in this country for real Americans.  Most members of Congress have no concept of what it's like to work for minimum wage, or to live on food stamps and try to get by.  They should know what this is like.  I propose that from the time they are elected, until the time they are sworn in, they have to live on minimum wage earnings and food stamps.  It will help with their budget making skills.  No one on Earth can budget better than someone on a minimum wage income.  

Implementing real, personal consequences for their actions might snap Congress into action and force them to do the job they were elected and are paid quite well to do. These people are expected to lead our Nation and I've never seen a group of individuals less qualified to do so than the 112th Congress.  

It's Time for Religion to Go Back Into the Closet

I've had it up to my eyeballs with the religious right.  They're ruining my country, ruining the American way of life and causing a lot of suffering.  Religious leaders are the consummate definition of hypocrisy, and I've had enough.  I will not rest until the line that separates church and state is long, wide and very, very vivid.  Religious leaders and their blind, devout followers have become the antithesis of what faith is supposed to be.  It's time to get this poison out of our government.

First, you should know that I was raised in the Christian church.  I have studied the bible.  I respect it as a piece of historical literature.  I reject it as a code to live by for the most part, yet there are some parts I embrace-- I do believe that Jesus Christ was a guy who didn't really have any bad ideas; love thy neighbor as thy self, take care of the sick, the poor, widows and orphans and foreigners.  Not a bad code to live by, however the parts where people are killed for wearing two different fabrics, women are sold into slavery and the rest of the insanity makes it impossible for me to accept the book as divine mandate.  Not to mention that science has debunked much of it, so I do not accept it as absolute truth.  It simply is not.  Still, the way Jesus taught us to live is not a bad concept.  He was a good man.

It's a shame that a bunch of guys got together centuries ago and decided that they could profit off of his teachings, and that their way was the right one and anyone who didn't go along would be damned--and then killed into the bargain.  And so it was with the crusades, so it was throughout history, and so it continues today.  

Modern Christians just don't get that this country was not founded on Jesus Christ--it was founded on the principle of religious freedom...the right to worship any god one so chooses.  Buddah, Vishnu, Ra, Allah, or Jesus.  Pick a god, worship whom you will.  You're free to do that.  Matters of faith should be a personal thing.  Jesus did say to pray in your closet and not out in the street.  

Religion should never be used as a cudgel to beat your fellow man over the head with, until he is bloodied into submission and forced to see things your way.  Faith doesn't work like that.  It never has and it never will.  Religion has no right to impose its will and its system of values and edicts on those of us who do not embrace it or embrace a different set of values from a different god. 

Yet today's Christian right beats all of us over the head with their bibles and religious system of belief in the form of restrictive legislation.  Their god says it is so, and so it must be for all of us. NO, NO, a thousand times NO.  Their god is not my god.  Their system of belief, and their book of rules do not apply to me.  I do not believe as they believe and my right to abstain from their moral code is bestowed upon me by the Constitution.  I don't have to follow along.

The great men who formed this nation warned us about the dangers of the state meddling in the matters of church.  It also warned us of the dangers of the church meddling in the affairs of governance.  The religious right is not listening and seeks actively to impose their bible on us all.  I will fight them to the death for my right to worship any other god or no god at all rather than bow down to the lord they wish to impose upon me.  I would rather die a free human being than to be bound by their religious ignorance that steals the rights of my fellow human beings and forces them to adhere to their antiquated sense of morality.

I have a message for all of the ultra-right-wing-conservative-Christians:  You're just as bad as the Muslims that you vilify.  How dare you stand there with your pseudo-righteous indignation ranting at a group of different religious zealots when they are so much like yourselves?  It is wrong and deplorable to fly a plane into a building and kill innocent people.  It is equally wrong to stand in front of a health center and murder one man in cold blood because he dares to offer a Constitutionally protected service to women.  And before you say that the death of 3,000 human beings is far worse than the murder of one...it is your bible that says all sin is equal in the sight of god.  And these things are not wrong because god says so--it is wrong because it breaks the rules of a civilized society with laws that say it is so.  

It is equally wrong for a group of "god fearing" men to attempt to legislate women's health services.  Sorry, men...you will never know what it is like to be a woman.  You will never, ever know what it is to be one of us.  You have no right, not here on Earth, and certainly not bestowed on you by heaven, to legislate women's bodies--or anyone's body.  I reject your heaven and your so-called divine authority to impose your will on my body.  The Constitution (which you claim to hold in as high esteem as your bible) grants me the right to decide what happens to my body. Abortion is legal and Constitutionally protected.  Rape is rape and is never the victim's fault.  No matter what.  You can label it all you like, you can define it and redefine it, and it's all the same.  I will fight for the laws that protect my body.

I refuse to accept the marginalization of a group of citizens based on their sexual orientation because your bible tells you so.  I reject your bible and your imagined moral authority once more.  Your bible also tells you that you can sell your daughter into slavery and take our neighboring countrymen into slavery.  I have a feeling Canada might not agree with that bit of scripture.  I don't see many daughters on the American market, but I would never put it past you religious zealots to try.  None the less, if you reject one tenent of the bible as outdated socially, then the same principle must apply to all the edicts of the Bible.  Is that really what you want our country to become?    

I live in a world of fact and tangibility--science and technology.  Your belief in an invisible man in the clouds watching over you does not negate my truth.  As the great Neil degrasse Tyson once said, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."  You don't have to believe in science, and I don't have to believe in your god. I have provable facts on my side.  You have faith in a deity you have never seen and have no direct evidence of.  That is your choice. It is not mine however.   Why can't you get that?  You do not have, nor have you ever, had the right to enact legislation based on your personal religious beliefs.  Governance is secular.  Jesus, Mohammed, Buddah, Allah, and Vishnu free.  None of them have any business in our public policy.  

To be quite honest, while Christianity professes to be a religion based on love, it has become a religion based on bigotry and exclusion.  Not by design, mind you.  It's what the leadership has made it.  they've taken the bible and the words of Christ and twisted them.  They've turned what should be a matter of quiet faith and loving ways and turned it into a billion dollar industry that preys upon the weakest and most vulnerable among us.  To be fair, if the churches in this nation want to participate in public policy, it's high time they put some skin in the game and paid taxes.  In fact that's the law.  

Pat Robertson, televangelist and former Presidential candidate, who recently warned his viewers that atheists are miserable and want to make Christians miserable as well, is worth an estimated $30 million dollars.  He's not unique.  Pastor Rick Warren (author of the best selling book, The Purpose Driven Life) is worth an estimated $25 million, and the list goes on and on.  Do they not remember that passage about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of heaven?  I guess that doesn't apply to Robertson or his political funding arm, The Christian Coalition.  

If you really want to see the obscenity of faith, you need look no further than the Vatican, whose net worth is estimated between $10-16.5 billion dollars.  The Vatican is invested in real estate, construction, steel, chemicals, banking, and insurance.  Although a significant portion of their vast wealth goes to the Catholic Church's charitable enterprises, an even more significant portion goes to this:

Just imagine for a minute the number of homeless people who could be provided shelter, how many hungry people could be fed for what this cost to construct?  Is this what the simple carpenter of ancient days wanted his belief system to become?  Is this ostentatious display what Christianity is all about?  What hypocrisy, what absolute self-aggrandizing, utter hypocrisy.  And this is the reason I cannot take Christianity seriously.  It is a mockery of itself.  The simple fact that religious leaders are (pardon the pun) hell-bent on inserting themselves into public policy, shows me that there is an ulterior motive to their actions that has nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and everything to do with their investment portfolio.  

I find it ironic that Jesus never once mentioned homosexuality in his writings and teachings--yet he told his believers to pray in their closets.  It's time that Christian radicals went back in the closet and stayed out of public policy and government.

No Twinkies For You

I'm a fan of snack cakes.  I absolutely love those horribly-bad-for-you, filled with sugar and a bunch of other ingredients not found in nature, sugar rush gems.  I always heard, and believed that there were two things on planet earth that could survive a nuclear holocaust; cockroaches and Twinkies.  Sadly, my beloved Twinkies couldn't survive the insanity that is the Hostess corporation.  When a product that is so deeply ingrained into the American pop culture dies, there are plenty of fingers pointing in every direction assigning blame.  

Farewell, beloved snack cake...

In the same way I like snack cakes that are ridiculously bad for my health, I also try to keep up with conservative news outlets (read, Fox "News" and Rushie).  That isn't very good for my mental health, but it's hard to refute an argument if you don't know what it is your opponent is arguing.  So I checked out their take on the Hostess Bakeries debacle and I was left with one question:  With Rush Limbaugh on the right, and Bill Maher on the left--how on Earth are the makers of Twinkies bankrupt?  

The sheer challenge of maintaining Limbaugh's enormous girth, coupled with Maher's open love of weed should be enough of a bipartisan force to keep Hostess in business for at least another 15 years. Two states have legalized pot and the Ding-Dong bakery is out of business?  How did this happen?

Fox "News" would have you believe that greedy workers who make around $20 an hour and get adequate benefits are to blame.  Any worker that has the audacity to sign up with a union is an enemy of free enterprise and are bankrupting good businesses.  What the bastion of "fair and balanced" isn't going to tell you is that since the late 1990's until now, the income of the bottom fifth of wage earners has decreased by about 6%, while the income for the top fifth of wage earners has increased by 14%.  

In the case of Hostess, while management was asking union workers to take pay cuts and decreases in benefits, they gave themselves huge pay raises.  There's something seriously wrong with this picture.  In the real world, where most of us live, we get raises based on work performance.  We do a good job, presumably we get a pay raise.  Most raises are between 10 cents to 50 cents an hour.  The bosses at Hostess tripled their pay while the company crashed and burned around them--while they asked the guy making twenty bucks an hour to get by with less.  

These are the same people who are trying their level best to avoid paying more taxes, while asking you to pay a little more to support the country and let me tell you, without some intervention things are not going to magically change.  These greedy jack-asses are not going to wake up one morning in their palatial estates and say, "You know what, I have enough money--let's give some more to the people who work for me."  That is never, ever going to happen.  For them, they will never have enough money and they don't care if you're starving in the street.  That is your problem. It's not their fault, it's your fault because America is the land of opportunity and if you only worked harder you could be as rich as they are.  

The income gap in this country is a much bigger problem than the budget deficit and no one is talking about it, nor are they going to unless we force them to.  Whether we like it or not, the people who represent us, as a rule, make a hell of a lot more money than we do.  Self preservation is instinctual.  They will protect their own financial interests first if we let them. If we want Congress to represent our interests we're going to have to make it a priority for them, because they're never going to do it themselves.  The income disparity is going to keep growing and growing until the country hits the tipping point where the other 95% of us can't afford to buy even cheap Wal-Mart crap and the entire economy is going to crumble under its own weight.  The CEO's of Hostess don't shop at Wal-Mart.  Neither do the CEO's of Wal-Mart for that matter.

The truth is that we should all be rioting in the streets demanding fair pay and living wages.  We should be screaming at the top of our lungs for affordable health care and even a fraction of the benefits that the CEO's of Fortune 500 companies enjoy.  Yet, we are not.  Our apathy enables their way of life and destroys our own future and the future of our kids and grand kids.  If we don't stand up for ourselves, no one else will.  If we don't do it soon, no one will be able to afford a Twinkie even if they are still around to enjoy.